The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of Holy Trinity Washington Registered Charity Number: 1168608 ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31[ST ] DECEMBER 2022 Administrative Address: Holy Trinity Church The Avenue 1 Washington NE38 7LE. ## **Objectives and activities** The Parochial Church Council (PCC) is the group of people who, with the Priest-in-Charge (when not in vacancy), run Holy Trinity Church. We describe who we are, how we are elected and how we organise ourselves in this report. Our objectives derive from the Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1956. We have the responsibility of co-operating with the Priest-in-Charge Revd Dr Philip Lockley and later in Vacancy, under the guidance of the Area Dean and the Archdeacon of Sunderland, in promoting in the parish the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical. We have the ‘power, jointly with the minister, to determine the objects to which all moneys to be given or collected in church shall be allocated’. With the Churchwardens, all members of the PCC are responsible for the maintenance of the church building. The 2004 report _Mission-shaped Church_ sets out the meaning of the ‘whole mission of the church’ as currently interpreted by the Church of England. Worship lies at its centre. It aims to transform people through faith in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. It is welcoming, relates to local culture, and is open to change when new members join. More recently, the published _Vision and Strategy for the Church of England in the 2020s_ identifies three priorities for the church to realise its vision for mission this decade: - To become a church of missionary disciples where all God’s people are free to live the Christian life, wherever we spend our time Sunday to Saturday. - To be a church where mixed ecology is the norm[1] – where every person in England has access to an enriching and compelling community of faith by adding new churches and new forms of Church to our parishes, schools and chaplaincies. - To be a church that is younger and more diverse. > 1 the mixed ecology describes the flourishing of church and ministry in Church of England parishes, and in other communities of faith through things like church planting, fresh expressions of church, and chaplaincy and online. 2 ## **Holy Trinity Parish** Holy Trinity Church is situated in Washington Village within the town of Washington. It is part of the Diocese of Durham within the Church of England. ## **Achievements and Performance in 2022** There were 212 names on the Electoral Roll at the date of the Annual Parochial Church Meeting on 1 May 2022. Average attendance at our Services in October 2022 were as follows: 8am Sunday Communion (fortnightly) – 11 adults and 3 children under 16. 10am Sunday Communion - 68 adults and 2 children under 16. 3 10am Tuesday Communion Service – 27 adults and 0 children under 16. Holy Trinity Church PCC are immensely grateful to the employees and many willing volunteers who have enabled so many aspects of the church’s life and activities to be continued and developed during 2022, following the lifting of restrictions and difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic and then moving into Vacancy from November 2022. We want to express particular thanks to staff and clergy who have done so much up front and behind the scenes. They are: - Priest-in-Charge Revd Dr Philip Lockley until November 2022 - Church administrator – Eunice Pestell - Organist and Choir Master – George Roberts - Assistant Organist – Thomas Hindmarch - Church Cleaners from Leanne Carling Cleaning - All clergy who are supporting us during vacancy On Sunday 20[th] November, the Holy Trinity congregation said goodbye to Priest-in-Charge Revd Dr Philip Lockley and we entered the current period of Vacancy. **Worship:** Our worship services on Sundays and weekdays include quiet Said Communions, Sung Communions, and Morning Prayer. Our monthly services include an evening midweek service in the Celtic Iona tradition, and a Sunday afternoon informal all-age service, Connect 3 which continued to take place once each month in the early part of the year but was disrupted as we approached Vacancy. We continue to consider it to be a key element in our outreach and mission however, and Christmas Connect 3 was lay-led following the departure of the Priest-in-Charge. Alongside regular worship patterns there were several special services during the year. These have included special services at Candlemas, Palm Sunday, Easter, Advent including Hope and Light and Carols by Candlelight, 2 Christingle services and Christmas Day. The Deanery Confirmation service was this year held at St Andrew’s, Chilton Moor and 2 adults from our congregation were confirmed. The Christmas services were particularly well attended this year after low attendances the previous year due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions. The church continues to support the Remembrance service at the cenotaph and this year was 4 again pleased to welcome several representatives from the local community and the British Legion to a special Remembrance Service which was held in place of the usual Eucharist. The Holy Trinity Church Choir and organ continues to play a major part in leading our sung worship and through special services in the church year and supports the whole life of the church. The choir has nurtured young talent and is a lively and dedicated dimension of our church life made up of a group of people spanning many decades in age, and our church includes a wide variety of musical talents. Throughout the year, the PCC has collectively taken a cautious and gradual approach to resuming the church’s worshipping life, seeking to discuss fully and find consensus for each change in approach in response to national guidance and wider changes in COVID circumstances. Decisions were taken over such subjects as distancing between chair rows and methods for receiving Communion. By the end of 2022, issues such as the wearing of masks, social distancing, sharing the Peace were matters of individual choice and communion was distributed via intinction by the priest. Refreshments were re-introduced, initially following the Tuesday morning service and then following the 10am Sunday morning service. We continue to live-stream our 10am Sunday morning service via Zoom. Thank you to the Zoom team for enabling this. **Prayer and Bible Study:** All our church members are encouraged to pray and study the Bible regularly as part of their personal devotion. Committed volunteers distribute our weekly sheet with Bible readings and Collect prayers to those church members no longer able to get to church so easily. These are also accessible via the monthly update email and the website. Morning Prayer is said in church on some weekdays. On occasional Wednesday mornings, a period of silent meditation and discussion follows the Bible readings for the week. **Occasional Offices** : We offer regular baptism services and frequently host marriage services and funeral services. During 2022, many wedding and baptism services which had been postponed due to Covid-19 took place and there were: - 25 funeral services in church, 6 funerals directly to crematorium, and 2 interment of ashes; - 13 marriage services in church; - 79 baptisms including 2 adults 5 **Pastoral care and Safeguarding:** Care and love for one another and our neighbours is a fundamental way we live out our Christian faith. The Ministry Group of clergy, Licensed Lay Ministers (Readers) and Licensed Pastoral Assistants (formerly APAs) forms a structure of pastoral care for those in specific need. This group is supplemented by a small team that distributes Communion at home. Our Parish Safeguarding Officer, Val Wilson, works closely with the Priest-in-Charge, members of Ministry Group, the Church Wardens, the PCC and others to ensure good practice across our whole church life in the safeguarding of children, young people and adults. Our groups and initiatives such as the Mothers’ Union, Craft Group, Flower Group, Trinity Trekkers, Women’s Fellowship, Friends of the Old Churchyard and Choir are all ways we offer pastoral support within our church community and beyond. Our monthly Bereavement Cafe offers a valued space for pastoral care to those in our wider community experiencing the effects of bereavement, whether recently or over the long-term. **Young people and children:** We have long-standing partnerships with several local schools, welcoming classes and year-groups to the church building for lessons and special services; and clergy and lay church members on occasion visit schools to contribute to teaching, learning and collective worship in assemblies. Our Connect 3 service is designed to engage the interests of children and their parents and seeks to build on relationships within the extended families of existing church members and those families approaching the church for baptisms. Our youth group has been inactive this year. **Community and social concern:** As a church body, we seek to share the love of God in practical ways with the local community of our parish and enhance the lives of those who live here. This includes inviting and welcoming members of the community into our church building for our social initiatives, especially those designed to overcome social isolation. Members of the local community have walked with the Trinity Trekkers and volunteered in the churchyard. We further support and raise funds for local charities alleviating poverty and distress. We also participate in a range of community activities, including caring for the biodiversity and beauty of our churchyard as a valued public space within central Washington. Elements of our social and community engagement in person slowly began to resume after COVID restrictions were lifted. In early autumn, we were pleased to host a concert with local choirs, and an Exhibition of the Life and Work of the Reverend Canon Cyril Lomax, in partnership with Washington Old Hall and The Washington History Society. We hosted a Parish Picnic in the Old Churchyard to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum 6 Jubilee. The church was opened to the public on several weekends over the summer and also in conjunction with the National Heritage Weekend in September. We were also able hold our first Christmas Fair since 2019 and welcomed people to a very successful Beetle Drive. Fundraising initiatives continued and our monthly Foodbank Sunday in aid of WCFP was resumed. A collection for the Washington Foodbank was made at our Harvest festival and over the Christmas period we raised funds for Wateraid, Sunderland homeless charities, The Children’s Society, Washington Mind – the mental health charity, and St Benedict’s Hospice, Sunderland. The **Everybody Welcome** and **Living in Love and Faith** courses were both well supported and thought provoking. The first as a lent course, both in church and on Zoom, and the second as a small house group, led and reported upon by Revd Dr Philip Lockley. **Stewarding our building and churchyard for future generations** : We want our church to be a continuing centre of Christian worship for generations to come, as it has been for many centuries. We further want to care for the natural environment around our church, including the green space of the churchyard. We seek to ensure our church building is well-maintained and fit for its purposes as a worship and community space. The church building is generally in good repair and in good condition. There were repairs carried out on the roof of the organ loft and vestry. Several other small maintenance tasks were carried out over the course of the year, and the PCC are grateful for the volunteer time and effort that ensured they happened. There is an ongoing issue with lighting which is being addressed. The Quinquennial Report was received in March 2022. No major urgent works were identified. Our Flower Group has continued to excel this year, providing excellent flower arrangements throughout the year, and particularly ensuring that the church looks wonderfully inviting at the major festivals of the Christian year. The Churchyard working group has continued the progress made in clearing and improving the churchyard since 2019 so that it is a pleasure for visitors and a good home for a range of plant and animal species. Some volunteers come from beyond the membership of the church, proving an excellent way of involving and engaging with the wider community, caring for our heritage and green space together. The PCC further thanks the Friends of the Old Churchyard, made up of members of the community and our congregation, for all their efforts in developing and maintaining our grounds and the Sunderland City Council and The 7 Washington Community Development Trust who have supported their work. The considerable efforts made to restore and nurture our churchyard were recognised when Holy Trinity Churchyard received a Silver Gilt Award in the Religious Grounds category in Northumbria in Bloom, alongside Washington Village’s success as Best Village in 2022 and Best Overall Entry. **Groups** : In June 2022, the Publicity Group divided into two groups, creating The Communications Group and The Community & Mission Group to enable more focused work in both of these areas. As we approached Vacancy, working groups, both existing and newly formed, were identified as follows: - Baptism - Bereavement - Communications - Community & Mission - Craft Group - Flower group - Fundraising - Giving - Ladies’ Fellowship - Ministry Team - Mothers Union - Offices - Sidespersons - Sound systems/Zoom - Trinity Trekkers **Structure, governance and management:** The method of appointment of PCC members is set out in the Church Representation Rules. All Church attendees are encouraged to register on the Electoral Roll and stand for election to the PCC. **Trustee meetings** : The full PCC met 8 times during the year with a high level of attendance. These meetings have been either on Zoom or Hybrid meetings, enabling those unable to attend in person to participate. We are 8 especially grateful for the volunteer effort and technical knowledge which allowed this accessibility. **Deanery Synod** : Representatives from Holy Trinity Washington have continued to attend Deanery Synod meetings throughout 2022. ## **Parochial Church Council Membership (Trustees)** PCC members (trustees) who have served during 2022 until the date this report was approved are: **----- Start of picture text -----**
Priest-in-Charge: Revd Dr Philip Lockley (Until November 2022)
In Vacancy (from 21 [st] November 2022)
Licenced Lay Ministers Mrs Olive Sangha (Secretary)
(Lay Readers): Mrs Ann Forth
Mrs Dinah Gollan
Church Wardens: Mr Andrew Cresswell
Mrs Janet Miller
Representatives on the Mr Andrew Cresswell (2020 - 2023) (Lay Chair)
Deanery Synod: Mrs Barbara Fiddy (2020 - 2023)
Mr Ashley Powell (2020 - 2023)
Mrs Ann Harrison (2020 - 2023)
Elected members: Mrs Dorothy Butler (2022-2025)
Mrs Helen Graham (2020 – 2023)
Mr Geoff Judson (2021-24)
Mrs Jane McIntyre (2022-2024)
Mrs Beryl Nesbitt (2020 - 2023)
Mr David Petherick (2020 - 2023)
Ms Judith Petherick (2022-2024) Treasurer
Mrs Janice Rutter (2020 – 2023)
Mr Jonathan Tyerman (2022-2025)
Mr David Wood (2021-2024)
Mrs Phyllis Wood (2021-2023)
Mr Josh Hindmarch (2022-2025)
Mrs Shirley Talbot (2022-2025)
Observers: Choir Master: Mr George Roberts
Safeguarding Officer: Ms Valerie Wilson
**----- End of picture text -----**
Signed on behalf of the PCC 9 Andrew Cresswell Lay Chair 19th April 2023 10 ## **Financial Report** The financial year ending December 2022 has seen our position improve compared with the previous year. We ended the year with total funds of £109,261.97, of which £78,581.68 is unrestricted (our general operating fund). The remainder is allocated for specific purposes including building development, youth and children’s ministry and church flowers. Our total income saw a significant increase over the course of the year. This was due to partial receipt of a legacy totaling £15,000 and a grant of £6,749 from the diocese towards cost-of-living increases. Without these, our balances would have been almost identical to 2021. We also secured a mission microgrant of £500 from the diocese, specifically to support our new toddler group at the appropriate time. This is in a restricted fund for this use. Our total planned giving income continues to be less than pre-pandemic levels as our total worshipping community remains fairly static in numbers, and as those who do give regularly find their own financial circumstances changing. Our Gift Aid claim however was slightly higher than in the previous year, largely due to income from collections at regular and occasional services increasing. Our new contactless device has been well used as people carry less cash. Fee income from weddings and funerals is significantly higher, in line with our building being open and previously postponed life events now taking place. The rental income from the telecoms mast in the tower also increased slightly in 2022. It has been particularly encouraging to see some of our fundraising events and activities begin again, with concerts and a Christmas Fair taking place in the latter part of the year. I know these plans will continue at a rate of knots over the coming year. We have managed to keep our expenditure at around the same level as in 2021 despite being a fully operational building for a greater proportion of the year. We committed to paying our full Parish Share amount and achieved this. Certain costs increased, including salaries and honoraria, but we spent less on repairs and maintenance. There is however an anomaly in our costs for light and heat. Our gas and electricity tariff increased significantly in mid-October, but we received no utility bills for the final three months of the year until January 2023, so these increased costs are not reflected in the 2022 accounts. Thanks to your generosity, we were able to send donations to our regular charity partners over the Advent and Christmas period, including The Children’s Society, Washington Mind, St Benedict’s Hospice and WaterAid. In the absence of a fundraising ceilidh, we collected donations to support rough sleepers through Hexham and Newcastle Diocese. We have also received some one-off donations and 11 funeral collections towards our own activities, and contributions to Philip’s leaving gifts. Thanks to you all. We are extremely grateful to those of you who have continued to support the life and work of the parish through your regular giving in all its forms. The PCC have continued to be vigilant in monitoring our finances and in forecasting future income and expenditure. We also have a new finance and giving group to share responsibility for our financial wellbeing, particularly during the vacancy. Members of this group are listed later, and all have some specific financial expertise. Going forward, our financial position is optimistic but not without challenges. The PCC have again committed to paying our full Parish Share amount for 2023, and it should be noted that the diocese for their part have reduced their expectation from us again this year, compared to pre-pandemic levels. This reflects an acknowledgement of our place in the wider church and our responsibilities to it. This commitment does, however, add around £225 per month to our outgoings. Our regular planned giving is down by around £5000 per annum on prepandemic levels. Our biggest challenges are the cost of utilities, which were subsidised by the government energy support scheme until the end of March, and the effects of being in vacancy, which carries financial costs if we wish to maintain our preferred levels of services. We may well not receive another legacy in 2023 such as that which has allowed us to end 2022 in such a healthy financial state. We need to remain vigilant and prayerful regarding our finances in the wider context of our church life and our place in the community. If you have ideas to share, expertise to offer or just questions to ask, please do not hesitate to approach myself, David Petherick, Josh Hindmarch, George Snowball or any of the PCC. With thanks to you all, to Josh for his oversight of the accounts and to our external examiner. Judith Petherick PCC Treasurer 19[th] April 2023 12 ## Annual Parochial Church Meeting **Sunday 30 April 2023 3.00pm.** ## Agenda ## **Meeting of Parishioners** - Opening Prayer - Minutes of the last meeting - Matters arising from the minutes - Election of Churchwardens to the above parish. - Any other business ## **Annual Parochial Church Meeting** - Minutes of the last meeting - Matters arising from the minutes - Report on the changes in the electoral roll since the last APCM - An annual report on the proceedings of the Parochial Church Council and other activities within the church. - A report on the financial affairs of the parish and presentation of the examined accounts for the year ending 31[st] December 2022. - Churchwardens’ report: including church fabric, goods and ornaments. - Deanery Synod report - Election of Deanery Reps (4 vacancies) - Election to the Parochial Church Council (5 vacancies) - Appointment of an Independent Examiner. - Lay Chair report - Any other business - Closing Prayer 13 ## **W��������� P�������� C����� C������** **F�������� S��������� F�� ��� ���� ����� �� D������� ����** **3.** ## **W��������� P�������� C����� C������** ## **F�������� ���������� ��� ��� ���� ����� �� D������� ���� R������� ��� �������� �������** |**I������� ���������**
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Virgin Money account
Santander current account
Cash in hand
**Total cash and bank**|**2022**
**£**
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74,391.48
88.82
109,261.97|**2021**
**£**
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52,871.69
200.23| |---|---|---| |||87,762.40| WASHINGTON PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL FINANCIAL STATEMEKfs FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2022 INDEPENDEMf EXAMINER'S REpoKf TO THE PCC OF HOLY TRINITY WASHINGTON I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts for the year erKJed 31st December 2022. Respectlve responsibilities of the Trustees and Independent Examiner As trustees of the Gharty, the members of the PCC are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. They consider that an audit is not required for this year under sedion 144{2) of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act) and that an independent examination is needed. It is my responsibilty to examine the accounts under section 145 of the 2011 Act. follow the procedures laid down in the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners section 145{5}(b) of the 2011 Act and state whether particular matters have come to my attention. Basis of Independent Examinerfs Statement My examination was carned out in accordance with the General Directions gwen by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charty and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also indudes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in tIE accounts. and seeking explanations from the management committ oncerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the eV￿en￿ that would be requir8d in a full aLKIit, and consequently I do not express an audit opinion on the accounts. Independent Examinerfs Statement I have completed my examination. I confimi that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material resFert: 1. accounting records were not kept in resp￿￿ of the charity as required by section 130 of the 2011 Act; or 2. the accounts do not accord with those records", or 3. the accounts do not comply with the applicab￿ requirements conceming the fomi and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Rewrts) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a 'true and fair which is not a matter considered as part of an independerrt examination. I have no concems and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a woper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Catherine Milbanke FCA 20 Mitford Close High Shindiffe Durham 6wJb Date 25 March 2023